Deadpool 2 Goes Mega Meta

Movie review: Deadpool 2

Ryan Reynolds still has the magical combination of charm and smarm that makes Deadpool unique in the superhero universe, but this highly self-aware sophomore effort feels like being at a party where everyone is taking selfies.

Deadpool 2

3/5

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz, Julian Dennison, Morena Baccarin, Brianna Hildebrand, Karan Soni, Eddie Marsan, T.J. Miller, Bill Skarsgard, Rob Delaney

Directed by: David Leitch

Running time: 1 hr 59 mins

Rating:  Restricted

By Katherine Monk

Ryan Reynolds came home to make Deadpool. And it was good. The Vancouver-shot movie was a labour of love that Reynolds pushed into the world wet and screaming, and  it went on to gross more than any R-rated film in history with over $750 million (US) in box-office receipts.

So he came home again to make Deadpool 2, and as Thomas Wolfe warned, retracing a happy path of nostalgia can lead to disillusionment. “You can’t go home again” is a line that defines Deadpool 2 in, fittingly, two ways: It whispers a sigh of disappointment at the result, and it also captures the central dilemma of our main character.

Wade Wilson is dead. Yet, through an act of chemical intervention at the hands of Dr. Killebrew, he is animated and indestructible. Wade wants to go home again, be reunited with his true love Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and start a normal family.

At the top of this sequel, that’s exactly what he’s trying to do — now that he’s got a body that works and a whole lot of crazy love in his heart. Yet, just when it seems Wade is going to put the pieces of his broken life back together, it blows up again, rocketing his body parts and his unstable brain back into space.

Literally. Deadpool’s universe works a bit like a Will Shortz word puzzle. It’s full of puns and self-referential nods, in-jokes for the cognoscenti and enough four-letter words to allow the common man to fill in the blanks.

Deadpool 2 could actually be seen as the meta-Deadpool, a movie about the first movie’s raging success, and the inherent problems of attempting a repeat. The movie is so aware of its own obstacles, it satirizes sequels as unimaginative cash-grabs in the opening spiel.

Deadpool’s universe works a bit like a Will Shortz word puzzle. It’s full of puns and self-referential nods, in-jokes for the cognoscenti and enough four-letter words to allow the common man to fill in the blanks.

From that point on, the fourth wall becomes a plate glass window — a panto playhouse where Reynolds can give the audience his best one-liners and skewer his own sassy persona. It’s fun stuff because Reynolds is a natural comedian with nimble physical skills and a slightly oily protective sheen.

When he takes the rubbing alcohol to his own soul, we feel the sting of excitement: something will be revealed. Deadpool gave us Wade with just the right amount of Reynolds’s personality poking through the mask.

This one takes a mega approach to meta, so just about every single scene includes an aside, a wink, a direct address to the vested audience about what they are witnessing. It’s like going to a party where everyone is taking selfies. It appears to be an act of engagement, but it starts to feel more like narcissism. It’s also a significant distraction.

Deadpool 2 suffers from a bad case of attention-deficit, which suits the neurologically compromised deadpan hero, but proves counter-productive to the whole film.

As much as we may love Wade and Reynolds and their freak lovechild Deadpool, the superhero who hates superheroes, it’s a lot harder to love Deadpool 2 because it’s not a movie as much as a running joke.

Sure, there’s a script that includes a teenage mutant named Firefist (Julian Dennison of Hunt for the Wilder People) who has a holocaust as his fingertips, and a great big chip on his shoulder. There’s the introduction of Cable (Josh Brolin), a character who travelled through time to save his family, and the formation of a whole new team to fight the perpetual threat of evil. Weaving this all together is the Wade-Vanessa love story: Wade wants to go home again, but “his heart isn’t in the right place,” and he hits the spiritual wall.

Director David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde) pulls all the bits and pieces together with his hot glue gun of action, and Reynolds coats everything in his own spunky brand of latex heroics. Yet the magical mix of surprise and tongue-in-cheek shock is gone.

Director David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde) pulls all the bits and pieces together with his hot glue gun of action, and Reynolds coats everything in his own spunky brand of latex heroics. Yet the magical mix of surprise and tongue-in-cheek shock is gone.

They try to remedy this by boldly venturing into the unexplored crevasses of bad taste. To Reynolds’s credit, he has the charm, and the physical cut of Canadian RCMP earnestness, to pull it off. Deadpool 2 does what it set out to do: Entertain by entertaining its own ideas of entertainment. It makes fun of comics, superheroes, Ryan Reynolds, sequels, Hollywood and the whole creative process. It also makes fun of movie critics who use the word “meta” in movie reviews.

So let me bare my soul to you, dear reader. I don’t want to be “that critic” — even though I’ve already used “meta” more than once. The truth is, like I told the rep upon exiting the theatre, I “had fun!” The last five minutes corrected the mistakes of the previous two hours. Besides, Reynolds is a hometown hero. He gave me a hug, once. I say he’s welcome to come home any time he likes — whether that dead meat in a wurst casing is with him or not.

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, May 18, 2018

Main photo: Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, referencing High Fidelity. Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

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Review: Deadpool 2

User Rating

3.5 (2 Votes)

Summary

3Score

Ryan Reynolds still has the magical combination of charm and smarm that makes Deadpool unique in the superhero universe, but this highly self-aware sophomore effort feels like being at a party where everyone is taking selfies. - Katherine Monk

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